(Wednesday, March 14, 2018 6:16:26 PM)
Craig Robinson has a direct line to a power couple who often share their opinion of the Knicks with him.
(Wednesday, March 14, 2018 6:55:02 PM)
Craig Robinson, brother of Michelle Obama, is leading a unique approach to player development that the Knicks hope pays big dividends.
[NYTimes] On Pro Basketball: Lose Now, Win Later? In Sixers, Knicks Have a Role Model (Thursday, March 15, 2018 10:24:25 AM)
The long-term absence of Kristaps Porzingis and a visit by Philadelphia on Thursday offer lessons for the Knicks, and a reminder that losing doesn’t have to last forever.
(Wednesday, March 14, 2018 9:57:52 PM)
There is a four-letter word Knicks center Enes Kanter despises. Tank. And he hates it almost as much as a three-letter word. Sit. Kanter wants to play. He wants to win and believes development of young players can and should come at a lower level. “I’m frustrated by losing, for sure. But I came here…
(Wednesday, March 14, 2018 9:45:35 PM)
PITTSBURGH — New York Knicks, we are talking to you: As many as five lottery picks could be on display at PPG Paints Arena when March Madness begins here Thursday with Oklahoma-Rhode Island. Tanks for nothing? No, tanks for something. Marvin Bagley III (Duke) is the cream of the crop here, but any of the…
(Wednesday, March 14, 2018 8:21:03 PM)
A rather eloquent philosopher/essayist-type once noted, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” So the Knicks in general, and Trey Burke in particular, remember the last meeting with the 76ers, who invade the Garden on Thursday. The Knicks have lost 16-of-17 games, including eight straight, and one of those 16 defeats…
(Wednesday, March 14, 2018 11:30:21 AM)
“I didn’t know what to make of him. He said, ‘I think I want to go into politics one day.’ I said, ‘OK, OK, keep that to yourself and come over and meet my aunt Gracie.’ All I could think about was, ‘Don’t say anything stupid in front of my sister or you’ll get jettisoned…
(Wednesday, March 14, 2018 2:01:43 PM)
There is not much to root for this Knicks season, but that hasn’t stopped former president Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama from cheering on the Blue and Orange.
[NYDN] Knicks exec Craig Robinson has faith in player development system (Wednesday, March 14, 2018 9:39:41 PM)
Craig Robinson wants to develop “on and off the court” and establish a “vertically integrating” system in the entire Knicks organization.
108 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2018.03.15)”
Puke
Could you elaborate? lol
Maybe he voted for Romney
He hates developing healthcare for all.
Hahahahahahahaha! Craig Robinson’s lack of detail on this “new style of development” is so hilariously Knicksy! If it were something revolutionary and effective, he should have so much more to say. Matter of fact- HE SHOULD BE WORKING AND NOT INTERVIEWING ABOUT THE OBAMAS!!!
I’m starting to feel like I’d rather have LaVar Ball in the FO- at least we’d never lose! PWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!
I don’t want to jinx us but Chicago can catch us tonight if we lose to Philly and Chi beats Memphis. Me and 4 of my friends could beat Memphis (as long as my friends aren’t on the Knicks roster)
Two unexpected wins for the tank last night!!! Something might actually fall our way if we execute properly down the stretch……
Only 2 games out of the 6th lottery seed with 14 games to go! At least that’s some good news. We can do this! Yes We Can!
@5
It’s certainly one way to look at it, but I wouldn’t read too much into what are essentially a series of puff pieces to provide content at the end of a long season. Plus, it’s not like other teams with respected player development programs are on record telling us everything they do in detail. For the Spurs, we know about “vitamins” and the fact that Chip Engelland can apparently teach anyone how to shoot. For the Raptors, who knows? But they keep producing productive wings and guards from the G-league and later stages of the draft. So I don’t think we should expect the Knicks to tell us how many crossover dribbles Frank is practicing every day.
I also quite liked Robinson’s comments about the organizational development structure and modeling it off successful public companies like Nike and Google. It’s at least recognition that building skills in the NBA is totally different from the residential college environment.
Finally, remember that Robinson’s most recent job was a slightly different personnel position with the Bucks, a team that’s built a strong reputation for development over the past 7-8 years. If we can do to Kristaps, Frank, and our other somewhat intriguing young players even a fraction of what the Bucks did with Giannis, Middleton, etc., then we’ll be a lot better off than we have been in the recent past.
Do you realize that in 2018 we’ve only beaten 1 non-tanking team — a 117-115 win at Utah?
Outside of that we’re 5-26, with wins against Dallas, Brooklyn (twice), Phoenix, and Orlando. This team is a long way from contending for anything. It just shows how laughable the “we don’t need any high draft picks, we’ll just develop a winning culture and 50 wins will follow” argument always was.
The Kings beating Miami is awesome, only 2 games behind us now… the Kings have so many young players that they have less of an incentive to fully tank, which is potentially great for us.
There’s no way Chicago loses to Memphis today, I’m more scared about Philly laying an egg and losing to us.
7 teams are projected to have cap space this summer. We’re not one of them.
https://basketball.realgm.com/analysis/249237/Projected-2018-Cap-Space-For-All-30-NBA-Teams
It’s always sad when you’re happy that they’re capped out because that means they can’t sign any more stupid contracts.
@9
For his sake, I hope it works. This franchise is in the dumps so I’m just suggesting that his comments give enough insight to make us fans feel a little better. To finally be able to rebuild around a young, potentially transcendent talent- albeit forced by injury- is an exciting time for me to follow with this team
Yeah, Sacto might be putting it together somewhat. Hield has been looking sharper, and now Fox is starting to do some good things.
Pretty much every single team has more young talent than we do, save for the Suns and Grizz, and the Suns have 3 picks in this draft.
We will have to make some enlightened lower level free agent signings (not this year) to try and catch up, though we now seem to prefer scouring the waiver wire and inviting undrafted guys to camp. Oh, and there are crappy trades (see Mudiay, Emanuel.)
Ben Simmons, Embiid and 3 random players from the W 4th St. court could beat the Knicks.
Some of what I would call the young up and coming rebuilding teams are a year or two ahead of us in their own process of adding young talent. But it’s not like we are in terrible shape. The reward for being behind them or in worse shape is generally a better pick. We have all ours.
If we are terrible again next year, we’ll get a shot at another quality player (probably better than we deserve because KP will be out). If we surprise on the upside, that means some of the young players we already have are coming into their own. We are probably getting a better pick than we deserve this year due to injuries.
If you think of in terms of stage of development, it feels less depressing to me. It only feel hopeless when we suck and don’t have our picks because we traded them away for players that either were bad or old. We haven’t done that in a number of years. We just lost a little time because of previous mistakes. We are on a reasonable path as long as we draft well and keep away from bad FA signings.
It feels annoying because what’s happening now was supposed to be happening for some years now. The late pushes to win after Melo’s mega max literally lost us 2-3 years in development and filled the cap space with bad contracts like Noah, Lee and Lance. We got really lucky to end up with Porzingis in the middle of that.
Going forward if management stays the course I am a bit optimistic, but we still have to wait and see whether Perry and Mills will do it. I think they might just keep the rebuild going well, but it’s just as likely that they’re preparing a package to trade for Wiggins in the offseason or planning to offer a max to DeMarcus Cousins or Isaiah Thomas or something like that.
OK so let’s say we tank into the 6-7 range. Draft goes Ayton, Doncic, JJJ, Bagley, Porter. On the board for us are Trae Young, Bamba, or Mikal Bridges (or anyone else not listed). Who do people here want?
Trae Young is a scary prospect. He was obviously out of this world earlier in the year. Is he Trey Burke 2.0? Or is he Steph Curry? Steph was a much better shooter as a freshman although did not have nearly the workload or passing ability of Trae Young this year.
btw Trae is only 1+ months younger than Ntilikina.
I’d probably still take Young over Bridges, but then I’d take Bridges over anyone else (Bamba, Carter, etc.).
i’m on the wendell carter train….. i like mikal… he’d be a solid pick but i think carter has the best upside out of any big in the draft… and his upside is a mix of kevin love and al horford… and he has a very good chance to get there….
it would be close between him and young tho…. but young’s struggles in 2p land during conference play is concerning….
There’s nothing scary about picking Trae Young if you ask me. Oklahoma is a team where the talent starts and stops with #11. He’s fast enough to blow by anybody, he can shoot it off the dribble and off the catch, and he’s likely second to only Luka Doncic in terms of feel and passing ability. You put him in New York and you have a perfect fit for him. He’s a big game guard who feeds off of the crowd, and then we have Beasley, Tim Hardaway, and KP who can get a bucket for themselves and score in motion. Add Frank Ntilikina’s passing and basketball IQ into the mix and you create catch and shoot situations for Trae Young. Trae Young reminds me a lot of Steve Nash. People thinking he’s gonna come in and be a high usage scorer are fooling themselves. In the NBA he’ll be a primary playmaker who can get into the teeth of the defense and shoot the three.
The best visual comparison I can give for a Knicks fan is “imagine if 2013 Ray Felton could finish around the rim and shoot threes.” That’s Trae Young.
Speaking of Trae Young, he’s playing right now. He’s about to smoke URI.
Yeah I’d go Trae Young also.
His upside = “game changer”
Bamba’s upside is also game changer, but we already have KP who presumably will play the same position.
I love Bridges, and if Young is off the board there and we’re picking between Carter/Bamba/Bridges I think I would take Bridges.
Which is why the contingent of us here who were screaming “opportunity cost” when Phil would make one of his dumbass moves were exactly right. The Phil Jackson years were a waste of time, they were a kicking of the can three years down the road, and here we are now, asset-starved, haven’t won jack shit in a long time, miles away from contention. The bill is now due for the squandered opportunities. Phil tried “win now” because he thought he could just plug certain players into his God-like Triangle Offense and he’d would crush the rest of the “how’s it goink” NBA with its silly three-point shooting. He knew the One True Way to win in the NBA and it involved long twos and passing out of the pinch post. He was spectacularly, hilariously wrong and he humiliated himself.
Yet STILL you will have people here defending Phil’s track record, and saying “he left us in a pretty good position” and “he didn’t trade away first round picks.” It’s rather remarkable.
I’d roll the dice with Trae. I think Steve Nash type potential is the best comparison I’ve seen. I wouldn’t give him Steph potential because Steph could always get off a shot, whereas Trae can be prevented from getting shots off from deep by bigger, athletic types.
Trae is a great shooter, has a great handle, can penetrate, and is a very willing passer. Let’s not make this complicated. The sky is the limit for him if he’s on a team with other legitimate threats for the defense to worry about.
Edit: Mikal is my second choice assuming Trae is gone in the scenario where we have the 6th pick and they’re both there.
Trae Young has teammates who blow lay ups and air ball free throws.
There really is a chance that Young drops to us, even if we don’t pass Dallas and Sac, since those teams just drafted small ball-dominant PGs in DSJ and Fox. Chicago seems unlikely to draft Young given their love affair with Kris Dunn, but you never know with them. Bamba or Carter seems much more likely for them to play next to Markkanen.
The good news is that I’d honestly be pretty happy with Young, Carter, Mikal Bridges, or Bamba. This isn’t like the Curry draft where I wanted Curry sooooo badly and knew immediately we got a much inferior player in Jordan Hill.
The Timmy contract really depresses me re: the hope thing. It seems like the minute they have any cap space, they go out and do something stupid, and then it’s another “once player X comes off the cap in year n+4, then we can really make our move.”
Remember, we didn’t have a 1st round pick for a couple of years. So no matter how bad we were it wouldn’t have helped. If we traded Melo to get a pick we would have gotten something good for him, but we don’t know exactly what.
But even Melo doesn’t bother me that much anymore. We eventually got a good 2nd round pick out of him. And even though I’m not a huge Kanter fan, he’s a pretty good player. So let’s we got 1 or 2 picks out of Melo back then when the Bulls were still pretty good, how much more would we have gotten than Kanter, McBuckets, and Chicago’s very good 2nd? Probably more, but it’s not a catastrophe. We got something for him.
Those 2 1st round picks we didn’t have were a catastrophe for our rebuild.
Noah bothers me in the same way overpaying for Hardaway and Baker bother me, but worse because he’s older and it’s a worse contract. That’s a different problem. No one good and young was coming to NY, but the contracts should have been short and fair.
just noticed Philly is playing us tonight, then Brooklyn on a back-to-back. That could work out perfectly for us.
The problem with the Phil tenure was that he did not look at the situation he inherited and say, “This shit needs a complete teardown and rebuild.” In his own hubris he thought he could tinker around the edges and put together a winner super quick because of the awesomeness of the Triangle.
If he had realized right out of the gate that a true rebuild was desperately needed, we’d be a lot further along by now. But we ain’t. So thanks Phil. I’ll always have those Arron Afflalo memories.
trae’s 2p fg% against conference opponents has been .456…. the only reason it’s close to .500 now is because he dominated a lot of bad competition in november/dec in non-conference play… portland.. ball state… northwestern .. northwestern state….
that to me is a bit of a concern… if he struggles in 2p land in the pros then we’re looking at four pg’s who all have that major problem….
Fats Russell is about to cost Trae Young a lot of money.
This Trae Young kid can really play. Lon Kruger sucks at calling plays, though. OU really just stands around and watches Trae Young get buckets.
We all thought that Penn had a real chance, but this is just ridiculous so far.
Trae Young is gonna be a really good NBA point guard.
Which means he’ll be drafted one spot ahead of us.
“Steph Curry – the Sequel”
Trae let me down! Ah well, I had Duke beating them next game, anyways. 🙂
Think there are some unrealistic media expectations for Trae Young? Here’s the ESPN headline from today’s game:
Trae’s stats – 28 points, 7 assists, 5 rebounds, 18 FGA (and 6 TOs). Boy they really shut that guy down.
lol
Forget about everything Phil did that you hate and disagree with me about. It’s all irrelevant to this next point.
If we had those two 1st round picks we’d be 2 years further into our rebuild than we are now and everyone would be a lot happier.
Of course we’d be getting a worse pick this year and next (and maybe last year too), but not having those two 1st round picks set us back two years because we were bad and couldn’t get rewarded.
I don’t know guys. I may be the least qualified person here to to express an opinion on a college player, but Trae Young looks more like Brandon Jennings than Stephen Curry to me on some scale of who he’s more likely to be as good as. I don’t think I’m a fan. He also may be a TO machine at the NBA level.
Brandon Jennings that can really shoot is actually a pretty good player.
Trae is a really good passer too.
If Brandon Jennings could really shoot, he would have been the #2 pick in his draft.
As much as I hated the thought of drafting Malik Monk, that’s how much I’d love the thought of drafting Trae. He’s a killer. He’s not a super athlete in terms of measurables and skywalking, so he does need some help in terms of competent teammates and coaching. Shit, that last sentence just depressed me again because knicks.
I suspect he’s not going to be nearly as effective shooting when he’s defended by NBA players, but his already high TOs are going to skyrocket. He not “that” efficient now. Next year he’s going to be another PG with a sub .500 TS% and ridiculous TO rate that everyone will saying needs time.
I’d rather draft Jock Landale then Trae Young.
I just have such a hard time knowing how to translate guys like him with a 35%+ usage rate.
Mike Daum looking in line for some redemption at least…..
“It’s always sad when you’re happy that they’re capped out because that means they can’t sign any more stupid contracts.”
+1 – that about sums it up
Trae Young takes a lot of bad shots because the Lon Kruger offense is:
1) Give Trae Young the ball)
2)?????
3) Profit
He has amazing passing vision, and he gets to the rim pretty much whenever he feels like. If Lon Kruger made him operate out of the pick and roll and off of screens, the kid’s efficiency would be elite instead of pretty good. The three ball wasn’t falling for him early in the 2nd half of today’s game so he took it to the basket on Fatts Russell down the stretch, and Russell was “giving him trouble all game.” The thing I don’t like about him is his effort defensively. I watched him give up on plays today as if it weren’t actually an elimination game, but the flipside to that perceived lack of intensity is that he’s really level headed under pressure.
At the next level, Trae Young won’t post super high usage rates because he physically won’t be able to take 20 shots a night against physical NBA defenses. It’s important he doesn’t go to a team like Orlando or Atlanta where they will ask him to carry the load from Day 1. A program like ours where we already have our go-to option in KP and a couple high usage vets like TH2, Kanter, and Mike Beasley will benefit him tremendously. And then defensively, we can hide him with Courtney Lee and Frank Ntilikina. At Oklahoma we got to watch him carry a terrible team with a bad strategy into the NCAA tournament and have a shot at advancing. Markelle Fultz and Dennis Smith Jr couldn’t do that despite being his physical superior, and they went in last year’s lottery. Trae Young would transform this offense, and he’s the exact type of big name the Knicks wouldn’t pass on.
I know almost nothing about possible draft choices for the Knicks, but I worry about getting players who can’t defend. Are there any players who can defend in those lists of people who might fall to the Knicks?
Out of the top 8 or 9 guys, Ayton, Bagley, Doncic, Porter Jr, and Young come with defensive red flags (listed from least worrisome to most worrisome). JJJr, Bamba, Bridges, and Carter Jr all project to be plus defenders at the next level. Having a point guard who can’t defend is all the rage now, though, so Young can be a bad defender and still be a net positive.
is it weird that i cried a little bit during the 30 for 30 about bernie and ernie?
I’d put Ayton and Bagley at the top of the defensive question marks list, since PG defense is generally pretty unimportant in today’s NBA (unless that Pg is Emmanuel Mudiay) given all the switching and pnrs. Having a defensive sieve like Ayton or Bagley at your 4 or 5 position is a much bigger problem for your team’s defense. Doncics defensive woes are overstated and mainly restricted to individual defense (he’s a pretty solid rotator / team defender), but those question marks can likely be ironed out with further lower body strength training in ways that Ayton Bagley and Young aren’t gonna be able to do.
I’m all for drafting Young if Doncic is gone though. He’s still probably the second best prospect in this draft though I really like Carter and Jackson as well
I would frankly be fine with any of Young, Bamba, Mikal and Carter Jr. To be quite honest. They all have real talent and have shown things that should translate to the NBA and its not very often you can say that about the 6-9 projected picks in a draft.
I really don’t know who I would take, probably Young since I think his team is truly remarkably bad and it shouldn’t count against him too much, even though he has had his fair share of issues. He still is a very good shooter and a very very talented passer. I’m the least scared about Mikal as I think he’ll be a contributor for sure, at the very least a reliable 3 and D guy for many seasons. Between Bamba and Carter I really have no idea.
>JJJr, Bamba, Bridges, and Carter Jr all project to be plus defenders at the next level. <
We need defense. So that's probably a good place to start.
However, I also want a player that can score efficiently at a good usage level. I've seen way too many college players that scored well without being outstanding that couldn't score well at the pro level and even more that came in as good defenders but projects on offense that never became decent all around players at all. If you can't score efficiently on good usage in college I don't want you.
We already have one project on offense in Frank. We can’t have two starting.
I think Bridges and Carter are the best fit, but take my opinions with a grain of salt.
i’ve keep trying to sink this troubling thought deep within my mind…it keeps coming back up though…man, i really hope we hold on to frank and don’t do anything incredibly stupid…
i wonder if there is any cataloged phobia involving the fear of knick’s management doing something stupid…
I know drafting for “need” when you’re as bad as we are seems dumb but Bridges (Miles) seems like such a great fit for us and I LOVE the idea of us drafting another plus defender two years in a row. I mean we saw how much better our defense was this year compared to last before Zinger went down by simply getting rid of Melo and Rose and adding Frank. We were actually kind of decent on that end for awhile. Let’s keep that up and if he can hit threes as a good clip then even better.
We don’t need defense. We need talent pure and simple.
you fucking toddlers have no idea how nostalgic that shot of Clyde and Breen is to the relics. I remember when Breen first showed up on Imus when I was in high school. He looked like he was about 12 like in that shot.
Uh oh. Hornacek smells a W.
Can’t we just waive Beasley or something?
https://twitter.com/NBA_Math/status/973219715463176192?s=19
No game thread?
I can’t beliebe we are going to win this game
How in the world has Frank only played 7 minutes
I can’t believe how bad our organization is at developing players
I love how we’re doing well due to future cornerstones Beasley Kanter and Lee.
KOQ. God dammit. If he weren’t a cross btw Mase and. Oak I would be really pissed right now.
8 points is nothing. I’ve seen us blow an 8 point lead during a time out. We can do this.
It amazes me no one wanted KOQ
This is going to be the worst win of the season.
Clutch FT misses Kyle. You get it
I really wish we could keep KOQ around for the next good Knicks team, the problem is just that it might take a decade for that to happen.
Keep the faith
@65
The famous law firm!
🙂
Mudiay, Kanter, TH2, and Beasley are the big 4 of stealth tanking. So much talent and counting stats yet so little production and even less defense.
You know what, either Hornacek really thinks a lineup of Mudiay, Hardaway, Lee, Beasley, and Kanter can be any good at all defensively or he’s in on the tank. There’s no way. He’s not that dumb right?
mudiay thinking he had the mismatch against embiid there was everything
I’m really starting to appreciate Mudiay’s contribution to this team.
That’s not the first time Mudiay has done the Derrick Rose trick of driving, missing a shot, falling to the floor, letting the other team get a 5 on 4 and easy shot. Bless him!
oh hi knicks I almost didn’t recognize you without your deficit
I think these Sixers are going to be pretty tough in years to come.
On the upside, it looks like the team is making some progress. They didn’t fade out until the 4th, so there is improvement.
On the other hand, Embiid is a fucking superstar. If he manages to control his turnovers and stay healthy he’s going to be the best Center in the league.
I’m thinking maybe H has figured it out. Putting 3-4 lousy defenders on the floor at the same time late game is great tank strategy.
@82 Maybe the best player in the league.
Hopefully Philly had to play hard enough tonight to make them a bit tired tomorrow…
@84
I think his ceiling is really this high, he has played 86 games in his career and he’s already this good. Elite defense and great scorer, it’s really just shot selection and turnovers he has to shore up.
Embiid and Simmons both look like they can be top players.
If Fultz comes back playing with his shot, holy shit.
Yeah… I guess the process really failed, even Saric quietly murdered us.
Breen had a pretty funny slip tonight, when announcing upcoming home games, he said “Knicks and Bulls battling for lottery position “
Oh man Chicago tried so valiantly to lose but tyreke Evans just fouled Blakeney from 3 with 2 seconds left
And the Bulls won!!
Just on Mike and Clyde, they 100% deserve sooooooo much better than the Knicks. The team needs to get its shit together for not just our sake as fans, but theirs given they have had to sit through some shit the last nearly 2 decades.
the two teams whose coaches are 100pct in on the tank are the bulls and the hawks
@92
Yeah, it’s frankly one of the things that annoys me the most about the Knicks perpetual sucking. It feels like Clyde is not far from retiring and I really want them to get to cover a real good team after so much bs.
Hornacek should be fired for playing Lee 37 minutes, this is unacceptable.
Alright! Tied for 8th. And Philly looked tired, I think the Nets got a shot tomorrow.
Bulls just won with Blakeny, Payne, Zipser, Felicio and Vonleh finishing
That is amazing.
They gotta sit Embiid tmw right? Gives the Nets a chance.
Lebron just murdered Nurkic
After Philly tomorrow, the Nets play Dallas, Memphis and Charlotte at home. And they’re not tanking.
We can do this, 7th seed baby!
Ayton played horribly in this loss to buffalo
First time watching Sexton this year and I know liking a prospect bc of one tournament game is fools gold but that was a pretty baller performance. He seems to have good passing and assist ability, pretty good on defense and not a bad shooter either.
Also did not realize Avery Bradley was Alabama’s coach. That’s pretty cool!
I think if Philly wins some games in the playoffs, there’s a good shot LeBron lands there. And if he lands there, they become a really good team right away. Like top-2 seed, instantly. And since it’ll be a 1+1, he’ll have very little risk if Embiid and/or Simmons goes down with a major injury.
How in the hell did Arizona get destroyed by Buffalo like this… Allonzo Trier was just terrible today too.
ayton might just be kanter with a jumpshot…. or the next jahlil okafor….
@102
I think they become the best team in the east right away, of course barring real injuries, maybe Boston with Hayward can challenge them. Lebron by himself is probably worth about 15 wins, and the Sixers are currently 13.5 games behind the Raptors.
They would probably have to let Redick go to create cap space, which is a loss of an important player, but considering possible improvements from their young core + Fultz this looks like a 58 win team.
LeBron and Simmons don’t seem like a good fit. Too much overlapping skill set.
@106 Yeah this isn’t like CP3/Harden. Simmons can’t shoot at all.
It’s an awkward fit because Simmons really can’t shoot, yeah, but Wade also couldn’t shoot 3s and there were questions about spacing in Miami, and they made it work with Bosh starting to shoot 3s + guys like Allen, Battier and Chalmers. They would have 2 plus shooters to stretch the floor in Saric + Covington and Embiid can shoot a bit, plus LeBron. Besides, bringing LeBron also allows your team to get pretty much any niche veteran you need, so they can just add a Kyle Korver type of player to the bench.
I don’t know, I would be really really scared of this team plus LeBron.